Story by Aditi Dahagam and Hiba Samdani, Co-Web Content Editor and Photography Editor

Photos by Abby Carella and Aditi Dahagam, Multimedia Editor and Co-Web Content Editor

Seniors wearing ’Stoga colors and club shirts shuffled to the main entrance of the school as the production crew set up cameras and ran through the script. As soon as the music began blaring through the speakers, the seniors started dancing, waving their hands in the air and lip syncing to the song. After three takes, the first scene of the video was done.

StogaFilm shot the Senior Lip Dub to the song “Dynamite” by Taio Cruz on Friday, May 7 from late morning to early afternoon. They started outside the main entrance of the school, worked their way through the lobby and Teamer Field, shooting the ending scene in the TV Studio. StogaFilm adviser Alison Ferriola decided to continue the Lip Dub this year because the film crew planned to film most of the scenes outside.

“We wanted the seniors to be able to have as normal of an end of year experience as possible.  Once the decision that Snow Day in May, (a gathering for seniors on the last day of school), was going to happen, we figured that we could do the Lip Dub in the same fashion – outdoors with distancing,” Ferriola said.

StogaFilm president and junior Amanda Hess oversaw the production of the project. Since her freshman year, Hess has helped out with certain portions of the Lip Dub and was excited to lead the project this year. As director, she outlined each segment of the video and oversaw the scheduling of the day.

“(Planning the Lip Dub) has honestly been kind of hectic, but really fun. It’s a big project so it’s kind of a big responsibility,” Hess said.

In order to film the Lip Dub safely, the StogaFilm crew worked to ensure that everyone on set maintained CDC guidelines. All seniors and crew members were required to wear masks and socially distance to the best of their ability throughout the film. Despite the changes, Hess is glad they were able to create the video this year.

“I didn’t think we were going to be able to do (the Lip Dub) this year, but I’m really happy that we could,” Hess said. “It kind of does feel like things are getting a little bit back to normal, which is super nice.”

Senior Jonah Enoch, one of the featured lip syncers of the Lip Dub, believed that the filming atmosphere was positive and he enjoyed talking to people he hadn’t seen in a while.

“I thought it would be nice to look back on high school and see me and my classmates having a good time,” Enoch said. “These were our final moments of being a student at Conestoga High School before internships and the energy was very pleasant.” 

Hess believes that managing the Lip Dub has been a great opportunity and she hopes that the senior class will enjoy the video as well.

“I know (the Lip Dub) means a lot to the senior class. (StogaFilm) gets a lot of feedback that (the seniors) really like doing it,” Hess said. “It just means a lot that I’ll be able to help them out. I hope I (did) a good job (as director) because I want them to like it.”

View pictures from the filming below!

Aditi Dahagam can be reached at [email protected].

Hiba Samdani can be reached at [email protected].